The NRA’s Campaign To Make America The Wild West Is Working

A man carrying a perfectly legal concealed weapon is walking across a parking lot towards a grocery store when he sees another man. He recognizes the second man as being a staunch opponent of the Second Amendment.

The first man begins to experience severe anxiety. After all, he lives in a country where there are nine guns for every ten people. If he doesn’t have his gun, he and his family could become vulnerable to the many people who do have guns. His life could be in jeopardy. The second man represents a clear and present danger to him and his family.

Panic rising, he pulls out his sidearm and shoots the second man. Two shots to the torso, one to the head. The second man falls dead.

When the police arrive on the scene, the armed man, clearly shaken, explains that the second man was trying to put him and his entire family at grave risk. The armed man was afraid for his life. The police let him go, and that’s the end of the story.

Do you think this is far-fetched?

The last eight months have rendered what should be terrifying court verdicts in cases involving clearly over-aggressive gun owners.

Curtis Reeves picking a fight with Chad Oulsen at a movie theater over a cell phone, and then shooting him dead.

Michael Dunn starting an argument with Jordan Davis over a car stereo, and then shooting him dead.

This is a trend that is already on its frightening way down the slippery slope.

Handguns, like assault rifles, have only one purpose. They were designed to kill people as efficiently as possible. They’re not tools. They’re not hunting aides.

For a long time, the ultra-right gun lobbies of the United States have worked hard — and successfully — to win maximum possible access to these single-purpose weapons.

But that was just the first step in a larger struggle. Because, and this is the sticking point, what’s the point of owning a gun if you can’t use it for it’s intended purpose?

We will never know the “other side of the story” in the three cases cited earlier because there is no “other side.” All that remains is a dead person, and the word of the gun owner as to why that person deserved to be dead.